Good, easy tips to remember for ‘those’ moments when nothing looks right and your inner spellchecker goes for coffee! šš
A casual remark in the comments on Mondayās post on two commonly misused pronouns, āthatā and āwhich,ā brought up this subjectāthe proper use of possessives and genitives. On the surface, it seems simple, but it can be complicated, so we are going to revisit a post from 2016 on this subject.
Most people understand that apostrophes can denote possession (and Iām not talking demonic here), or they can indicate a contraction.
Things to remember:
- WhoāsĀ is theĀ contractionĀ of āwho isā or, less commonly, āwho has.ā
- WhoseĀ is theĀ possessiveĀ of āwhoā or, somewhat controversially, āwhich.ā
- Their(s) isĀ theĀ possessiveĀ of āthey.āĀ (TheyāreĀ proud to own it,Ā itās theirs,Ā andĀ itās not there.)
- ItsĀ is theĀ possessiveĀ of āit,ā and āitāsā is a contraction of it is.Ā Note that for both they and it, there is no apostrophe in the possessive form. We will getā¦
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